Four leading Team GB athletes – including Olympic champion Lizzy Yarnold and five-time Paralympic gold medallist Hannah Cockroft – are fronting a new athlete welfare campaign promoting a new initiative called #More2Me by the English Institute of Sport (EIS).
The programme, developed by the EIS Performance Lifestyle team, has been set up to help athletes develop a more long term and rewarding sport/life balance and to promote the benefits of planning for life after sport.
The initiative aims to deliver personalised support services to athletes from more than 30 UK Sport funded world class performance programmes which will encourage elite athletes to develop a more-rounded identity.
The promotional campaign was led by a Yarnold fronted launch film which rolled out across the organisation’s digital and social channels such as YouTube
Twitter,
Fantastic to see the newly launched #More2Me campaign is being featured on the @BBCSport website.
The article details how athletes are being encouraged to take up interests outside their sport to potentially enhance their performance.
Read coverage https://t.co/oYK9wPtBhU
— English Institute of Sport (@eis2win) February 26, 2019
and Instagram.
Thanks to our four #More2Me Athlete Champions who are supporting the new #More2Me campaign which aims to encourage athletes to improve sport-life balance and recognise the benefits of planning for a life after sport.
@HCDream2012 @Kristian_Thomas @nekodadavis_57 @LizYarnold pic.twitter.com/wryO5mVcWN
— English Institute of Sport (@eis2win) February 26, 2019
And its reach was further extended by being backed on the four athlete ambassador’s personal platforms too: they include retired Olympic gymnast Kristian Thomas and Tokyo 2020 hopeful in Judo Nekoda Smythe-Davis,
So excited to announce that I am a #More2Me Champion & will be working with @eis2win & @TeamGB greats @LizYarnold @Kristian_Thomas @HCDream2012
The new campaign will help athletes balance sport/life and plan for life after sport. https://t.co/zQKSgShXr8— Nekoda Davis (@nekodadavis_57) February 26, 2019
as well as Yarnold and Cockroft
Really proud to have been asked to be a #More2Me Champion. I’m excited to be working with @eis2win & fellow Champions @LizYarnold @nekodadavis_57 @Kristian_Thomas on this new campaign to help out our friends and fellow athletes – https://t.co/HzsmC4Iv5B
— Hannah Cockroft MBE (@HCDream2012) February 26, 2019
The four British athletes, who have been chosen as each are currently at different stages in their sports careers, will front a series of initiatives to drive awareness of the campaign amongst fellow athletes and promote the message via social media in the run-up to Tokyo 2020.
The campaign is also backed by a range of related organisations and figures such Team GB,
Double Olympic champion @LizYarnold is fronting a campaign from @eis2win to support athletes with a better sport-life balance and how to plan for life after competing.
More from Lizzy and #More2Me here: https://t.co/dvfFtTuXH3 … pic.twitter.com/8vcL4Jt3gO
— Team GB (@TeamGB) February 26, 2019
UK Sport, the Minister for Sport Mims Davies and the BBC.
The services will be available to 1,200+ elite UK world class funded athletes and have been designed with the objective of providing a variety of personal and career development support opportunities.
At the core of the #More2Me campaign is the aim to prompt athletes to consider their lives’ outside of and beyond sport whilst they are still competing and not neglect this until nearing retirement.
At the launch event EIS Head of Performance Lifestyle Joanna Harrison explained: “One of the things we often see with athletes coming to the end of their careers is a sense of huge loss as all the certainties they had in their sporting life are no longer in-place.
“By taking on board the messages of #More2Me and engaging with Performance Lifestyle services, we believe athletes can achieve both performance benefits in their sport and be better equipped to manage the challenges they will face during their world class careers and when the time comes to retire from competition.”
Linked to the future vision for sport’s role in UK society at an event marking the launch of UK Sport’s Future Strategy for performance funding, Mims Davies MP, said:
“Being a dedicated, fully focused elite athlete is hugely rewarding but can also be all-consuming. I hope this new initiative can help sportspeople use their talents so they can foster other interests too,” commented Mims Davies MP at the event marking the launch of UK Sport’s Future Strategy.
“It can give them an additional sense of identity and further opportunities beyond the sport which they love, so they are not left feeling isolated when their time as a competitive athlete comes to an end.”
While Dame Katherine Grainger, the Chair of UK Sport, added: “It is very important for athletes to have balance in their lives and the UK high performance system works hard to provide great opportunities to ensure individuals can develop as both a performer and a person.
“My own EIS performance lifestyle advisor was instrumental in helping me create time for interests outside of sport as well as the important and challenging transition period when I started to think about life beyond high performance sport. It is crucial that each individual proactively looks to the opportunities available which can provide huge benefits in both the short and the long-term.”
Links:
EIS Performance Lifestyle Services
https://www.facebook.com/eis2win/
https://www.instagram.com/eis2win
https://www.youtube.com/user/eis2win
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